Open to interpretation

Sunday

Sep 27, 2009 at 12:01 AMSep 27, 2009 at 10:59 AM

Luc Tuymans' paintings exude quiet, contemplative simplicity. His work is a reduction of form to its essential shape and pattern. With a palette of subtle color -- mostly warm and cool grays -- he makes subjects seem to be enveloped in an atmospheric haze.

Luc Tuymans' paintings exude quiet, contemplative simplicity. His work is a reduction of form to its essential shape and pattern. With a palette of subtle color -- mostly warm and cool grays -- he makes subjects seem to be enveloped in an atmospheric haze.

But inspect these paintings, and you'll discover profound complexity.

More than 70 of the Belgian artist's works fill the galleries in the Wexner Center for the Arts. Visitors will discover enigmatic narratives involving memory, observation and the difficulty of understanding history.

Understated and unassuming, each piece speaks to the limitations of perception. Tuymans tackles difficult issues such as colonialism, the Holocaust and the aftermath of Sept. 11.

The works are not so much an indictment as they are a warning about power and shortsightedness.

Although Tuymans is influential throughout Europe, he is less known here. This first U.S. retrospective will give American audiences the opportunity to experience his vision.

Often, he focuses on the mundane. The Rabbit, At Random, The Leg and The Doll are visual experiences disconnected from linear thought.

They seem like interruptions -- unexpected images viewed by chance. Perhaps symbolic, the works underscore the peculiarities of perception.

In the series "Der Diagnostische Blick (The Diagnostic View)," Tuymans reproduces images from a medical text. Designed to aid doctors, the once-clinical images are now obscured by the painting process.

The works speak to the frailty of the body and question our ability to accurately interpret signs and symptoms.

How we interpret what we see is forever problematic. Tuymans reduces detail in many pieces to enhance a stark uncertainty. Depicting structures from German concentration camps, The Gaskamer (The Gas Chamber) and Our New Quarters underscore how a seemingly innocuous location can become a place of horrors.

Der Architekt (The Architect) is an image of Albert Speer on vacation. In the painting, he is simply a man on skis. Sitting on the ground after a fall, he is neither good nor evil. But as the chief architect for Hitler's Third Reich, he was a man so closely allied with evil that it is hard to perceive him in any other way.

Addressing the legacy of Belgian colonialism in Africa, the "Mwana Kitoko: Beautiful White Man" series documents the Congo's struggles for independence. Most powerful is the piece Chalk. Filled with symbolism, it speaks to the assassination of Patrice Lumumba.

The Secretary of State focuses on the enigmatic gaze of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Raising questions of trust and intent, Tuymans forces a state of interpretive uncertainty.

W is an image of Walt Disney standing beside a map of the proposed Epcot Center in Florida. The metaphoric connection to President George W. Bush's plans for Baghdad, Iraq, is clear.

Tuymans' work challenges our desires to label the world of appearances in simplistic terms. He positions himself in the gray space between extremes, allowing for introspection.

Powerfully addressing concepts of memory and interpretation, he provides an antidote to the vitriolic spin of information that bombards our lives.

With quiet intensity, he lures the viewer and lets him draw his own conclusions.

• "Luc Tuymans" continues through Jan. 3 in the Wexner Center for the Arts, 1871 N. High St., at Ohio State University. Hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sundays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays; and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. Admission: $5, or free for students and for children 17 and younger. Call 614-292-3535 or visit www. wexarts.org.